1. Field of the Invention
An apparatus for transporting microfiche master frames, preferably containing microfiche, to and from an operating station, and more particularly for feeding master frames to the operating station and then selectively delivering the master frames to a loading station for recycling through the transport apparatus or ejecting the master frames to an exit station.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Transport apparatus for use in copying and duplicating machines are known in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 3,836,252 discloses a microfiche duplicator having a copyboard upon which a microfiche master to be copied is manually placed. The microfiche master is transported to a copying station wherein a preselected number of copies are produced. The microfiche master is then transported back to its original loading position; the copies are transported to a collection tray. This type of duplicating apparatus is generally unsuitable for high speed copying of large numbers of microfiche masters since each master must be manually fed into the duplicating apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,503,679 describes a photocomposing machine wherein a stack of framed originals are placed in a loading magazine. The transport apparatus of the photocomposing machine automatically picks up an original from the loading magazine and moves the original into position of exposure. After making a preselected number of exposures, the transport apparatus transfers the original from the exposure station to an exit receptacle. Although the disclosed photocomposing machine has a transport apparatus which automatically feeds in a plurality of framed originals, there is no provision for automatically recycling the copied framed originals back to the loading magazine for repeated copying. This provision is preferable when it is desired to produce a plurality of collated sets of copies from a set of originals. Without the recycling provision, collation would generally be done manually.
An aperture card reproducer and duplicator is described in U.S. Pat. NO. 3,535,039. Master cards to be reproduced are stacked in a feed station and are transported to an exposure station wherein a preselected number of copies are mde, and then transported to an exit hopper. The transport apparatus disclosed for use in the aperture card reproducer and duplicator is not capable of recycling master cards from the exit hopper back to the feed station and thus, as discussed in connection with the photocomposing machined described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,503,679, generally requires that collation be done manually.
A printer system described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,709,595 employs a transport system which transports a document from the bottom of a document stack loaded in a feed station to an exposure station wherein a preselected number of copies are made. The copied document is then returned to and deposited on the top of the document stack for eventual recirculation through the printer. This patent does not disclose means for selectively removing individual documents from the transport system while recirculating the remaining documents through the printer.